Your Photo’s Ready, From Man With Perfect View

LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – Armed with only his cell phone, and what must be assumed to be both a high-capacity memory card and the best-charged battery available anywhere, Pottsgrove Board of School Directors member Rick Rabinowitz (at top) played photographer-of-the-moment Friday night (June 16, 2017) during the Pottsgrove High School graduation ceremonies inside the school’s Kauffman Road gymnasium.

As a result the grads, their families, and friends can see and download – for free – any or all of more than 470 photos Rabinowitz took from an unobstructed vantage point: his seat on stage, about 15 feet from where hands were shaken and diplomas distributed.

Snapping pictures was an afterthought, Rabinowitz explained late Friday night on the PGSD Discussion Facebook page. Once he realized how he could take advantage of his position on-stage, though, he turned the first few clicks into a night-long mission.

“It took me a while to get all 476 photos … uploaded to a share site on Shutterfly,” he wrote. “I took them in the same order the names were read. To the parents of the first few students, including our wonderful salutatorian and valedictorian, as well as the class president, it didn’t hit me that I had a birds-eye view that could be shared until a few students’ names had been called. Also, there were a few students who didn’t look towards me and so their pics aren’t that great. Still, most of these are pretty good and they are all available.”

“I didn’t do this to help Shutterfly sell pics,” Rabinowitz added. “If you message me an e-mail address to share the photo (include your name and your child’s name, so I know you are legit) and the actual file name (you can see it), I will provide it at no charge.”

Rabinowitz took the photos following his speech to the assembled graduating seniors and their commencement guests. In it, he marveled at the grandness of the graduation ceremony, and encouraged parents to enjoy every fleeting minute. Then he revealed how he had inadvertently deprived his mother of the chance to see him graduate from high school, and apologized for such youthful thoughtlessness.

It was a touching and, for Rabinowitz, somewhat publicly emotional talk. As he promised from its outset, it also was brief, and at its conclusion he received warm audience applause. Then he returned to his seat at the back of the makeshift stage, set up in the school gymnasium where the ceremony was moved due to a threat of rain that never materialized, and figured he had little else to do except watch the event unfold.